{"id":4884,"date":"2022-01-10T06:54:36","date_gmt":"2022-01-10T06:54:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4884"},"modified":"2024-02-08T09:27:04","modified_gmt":"2024-02-08T09:27:04","slug":"misc-media-why-i-loathe-tv-advertising-with-such-abiding-passion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/?p=4884","title":{"rendered":"MiSC\/MEDiA: Why I Loathe TV Advertising With Such Abiding Passion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The restaurant scene from Brazil<\/em> superbly captures the gulf between products as advertised and as actually delivered. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t my first post on this topic. I doubt it\u2019ll be my last. Why return to such a theme? This time it was prompted by a silly FB post by a friend about which David Bowie number, of four he specified, \u2018would you rather\u2019\u2026 etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pointless silliness, perhaps? Well, yes. I.e. totally suited to and at home on FB. As, indeed, is the constant harassment of advertising. But it so happened that the most popular choice was Heroes. Admittedly an excellent song. But, for me at least, tarnished by its heavy usage in adverts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also recall the pride with which several drummers on a FB drummer\u2019s forum related that they had been in that recent ad\u2019 for a gambling sports sponsor that features hordes of drummers. I\u2019m glad to say I can\u2019t recall exactly which such parasitic body it was. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d love the exposure that might bring (well, perhaps for a few of the more \u2018featured\u2019 of the many hundreds of otherwise anonymous players). And I\u2019m sure the nuts and bolts of actually filming it might also be fun. Did all these drummers get get paid, I wonder?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what about taking a principled stand against the cancerous blight on our society that is gambling? Or even advertising as a whole? Or, better still, advertising as a hole<\/em>\u2026 specifically, an arsehole\u2019!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Talkin\u2019 ass: the allure of the ad\u2019 (Renault Megane).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The anti-climax super-unsexy reality!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s r-r-r-r-right f-f-f-f-folks, I\u2019m talkin\u2019 ass! Now I felt this way long before I saw Bill Hicks do his anti-advertising schtick. Indeed, a loathing for advertising – and a contempt for gambling – was something I learned at home, mostly (I believe?) from my father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in order to keep things relatively short and \u2018sweet\u2019 here and now, let\u2019s wrap this up with a short consideration of \u2018the asshole in contemporary culture\u2019 (sounds like a topic on a college degree syllabus!). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It turns out that some of the ugliest ideas of the worst types of racists and those dearest to many a ruling elite converge, for differing reasons, around a certain nexus of ideas. As mentioned above, I don\u2019t intend to go into great detail on the subject(s) here. Perhaps another time?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I will say is that there\u2019s a culture of brashly aggressive ugliness, massively on the increase, from the politics of Trump, to the shouted egotism in rap, or the gurgling screams of extreme metal. It\u2019s also manifest in the strident upbeat chirpiness, and even – I contend – the zombie-smiling lockstep of Nuremberg-rally style formation dancing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The massive and very visible rise of the latter, especially obvious in advertising, had me baffled for a little while? Why the sudden effusion of such stuff? And then it struck me; we now have loads of educational institutions, pumping out hordes of glassy eyed dreamers, who have become production line product, trained in dance and\/or drama. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what\u2019s the glorious acme of their profession most might earn a buck or two from? Depressingly, it\u2019s advertising. I suppose some might get Butlin\u2019s style gigs. Some might go on to teach more aspiring dreamers. But, as with Fine Arts and Music, most will have to eke out a living by other means. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dammit! I\u2019m still skirting around my chief focus\u2026 the omnipresent asshole! So, let\u2019s get to it, let\u2019s really get stuck into the fundament\/als! Thar\u2019 she blows\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basically it boils down to this; would you be happy inviting the kind of hectoring, patronising, wheedling, insinuating assholes that one hears in advertising in off the street to harangue you in your home? \u2018Cause that\u2019s what we\u2019re all doing, when we tolerate advertising. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, rather depressingly, that\u2019s what a great deal of what I\u2019m increasingly thinking of as contemporary serf-culture trains us to do. If you like a lot of modern pop music, which includes supposedly \u2018underground\u2019 or counterculture (but in reality totally commercially co-opted) genres like rap or metal, you\u2019re already being inoculated in the required \u2018herd immunity\u2019 to such internalised or even self-inflicted bullying. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway, enough ranting, or sounding off, or whatever it may be. For now! my thoughts on all this are fairly clear, if not, perhaps, terribly well formed. But they may change, with time, and further consideration or information. For the time being, however, I remain resolute in my disavowal of the pollution that is most TV advertising. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This isn\u2019t my first post on this topic. I doubt it\u2019ll be my last. Why return to such a theme? This time it was prompted by a silly FB post by a friend about which David Bowie number, of four he specified, \u2018would you rather\u2019\u2026 etc. Pointless silliness, perhaps? Well, yes. I.e. totally suited to … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “MiSC\/MEDiA: Why I Loathe TV Advertising With Such Abiding Passion”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[77,74,19,68,20,58],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paGwUa-1gM","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4884"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11492,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4884\/revisions\/11492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.sebpalmer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}